OF IDLENESSE

S
we see some idle-fallow grounds, if they be fat and fertile, to bring
foorth
store and sundry roots of wilde and unprofitable weeds, and that to
keep
them in use we must subject and imploy them with certain seeds for our
use and service; and as wee see some women, though single and alone,
often
to bring foorth lumps of shapelesse flesh, whereas to produce a perfect
and naturall generation, they must be manured with another kinde of
seed;
so is it of mindes, which except they be busied about some subject,
that
may bridle and keepe them under, they will here and there wildely
scatter
themselves through the vast field of imaginations.

Good sir, he that dwels
everywhere,No where can say, that he dwels
there.

It is not long since I retired
myselfe
unto mine owne house, with full purpose, as much as lay in me, not to
trouble
myselfe with any businesse, but solitarily and quietly to weare out the
remainder of my well-nighspent life; where me thought I could doe my
spirit
no greater favour, than to give him the full scope of idlenesse, and
entertaine
him as he best pleased, and withall, to settle himselfe as he best
liked:
which I hoped he might now, being by time become more setled and ripe,
accomplish very easily: but I finde,

Variam semper dant otia
mentem. -- LUCAN, L iv. 704.

Evermore idlenesse,Doth wavering mindes addresse.

That contrariwise playing the
skittish
and loosebroken jade, he takes a hundred times more cariere and
libertie
unto himselfe, than hee did for others, and begets in me so many
extravagant
Chimeræs, and fantasticall monsters, so orderlesse, and without
any
reason, one hudling upon another, that at leasure to view the
foolishnesse
and monstrous strangenesse of them, I have begun to keepe a register of
them, hoping, if I live, one day to make him ashamed, and blush at
himselfe.